The Well-Tempered Ear
Here’s music to mark Mother’s Day
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By Jacob Stockinger
This Sunday is Mother’s Day 2024.
The holiday celebrating mothers, grandmothers and women whose are like mothers to us is celebrated around the world in North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Africa.
Mothers have long provided inspiration to composers, performers and listeners.
The Ear’s mom loved to hear him practice and play Chopin’s Waltz in E minor and Rachmaninoff’s popular Prelude in C-sharp minor (played by the composer in the YouTube video at the bottom), which dropped out of fashion for many years but now seems back in favor, especially as an encore.
Mom was proud of her pianist son and once even let the telephone sit near the piano when I was playing the Rachmaninoff for someone who had called her long-distance and wanted to hear more of what was until then just background noise to her conversation.
Anyway, here is one of the best pieces I have seen for you to read and listen to as you celebrate Mother’s Day. Some of the music is sure to be very familiar, other music less so.
Here are 20 pieces, with brief introductions and translations, about mothers from the website Interlude in Hong Kong:
Here’s to you, Mom.
Do you have a piece to dedicate to your mom?
Did your mother have a favorite piece she liked to hear?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Hear 25 works of Christmas-inspired classical music plus 86 minutes of background music
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today — Sunday, Dec. 24, 2023 — is Christmas Eve.
Many people and households will start celebrating Christmas today and tonight.
Then, of course, there is tomorrow — Christmas Day and especially morning,
By now you have certainly heard many hymns and carols plus the usual popular holiday musical fare.
But here are 25 works of classical music that are appropriate for today and tomorrow.
Some composers and works probably sound familiar while others are more obscure or neglected.
But each work comes with a short background story or narrative, plus an audio-visual video clip from YouTube.
Here is the link. Take a listen and decide for yourself.
In a less serious vein, the YouTube video below adds a different site with 86 minutes of traditional and familiar songs, hymns and carols — but in instrumental arrangements. It might sound a lot like old-fashioned Mantovani, but The Ear thinks that the lack of words and vocal music makes it more suitable for background to conversation and socializing.
What do you think?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Gramophone critics name their favorite recordings of 2023
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By Jacob Stockinger
Based in London, Gramophone Magazine — below is the December cover celebrating the centennial of opera legend Maria Callas — is probably the best known and most highly respected magazine to focus on classical music.
The monthly features and reviews are usually quite illuminating. And the year-end wrap-ups or seasonal holiday guides are often excellent for purchasing CDs and LPs, or for simply finding out and sampling the new releases of the past year on a streaming service.
Below are the the favorites by various critics for Gramophone.
The Ear finds it particularly interesting and telling that the critics refer to their “favorite” recordings — not the “best” recording — of the past year. I find “favorite” more honestly subjective than the falsely objective “best,” which takes no account of personal taste or preference.
Unfortunately, unlike many other similar lists the Gramophone story does not include samples from YouTube or the actual recordings. (You can hear one sample in the YouTube video at the bottom where Andras Schiff plays Bach on a rarely heard clavichord.)
But each selection has a link to the full review that appeared in Gramophone.
You should know that Gramophone has the reputation of favoring British composers, artists and labels. And that nationalistic bias shows in some of this year’s selections.
Nonetheless, many of the choices —across many different genres from instrumental and vocal soloists to chamber music to orchestral and choral music — are informative and intriguing.
Check them out for yourself via this link:
To see any crossovers in British and American year-end lists, you can check out this year’s Top 10 from Tom Huizenga on National Public Radio (NPR):
What do you think of the selections?
Do you agree with any? Which ones?
Do you have your own suggestions about the best or favorite recordings you heard this year?
The Ear wants to hear.
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NPR names the Top 10 classical recordings of 2023
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By Jacob Stockinger
Every holiday season, The Ear used to post various lists of the top classical recordings of the year as a kind of gift guide for giving or receiving CDs.
Such lists can still be used that way — especially now that audiophiles have turned to vinyl LPs that are quite expensive as well as limited in choice.
But since so many of us now have streaming services, I view such lists more and a guide to exploring rather than purchasing.
For example I can listen to the first album in 12 years by Awadagin Pratt (below and in the YouTube video at the bottom). It is “Stillpoint” and it features six pieces commissioned by Pratt. By streaming I can decide if I like it without buying it – and getting stuck if I don’t, which is often the case with new music.
Indeed, I think one of the best and most economical gifts one can gift a classical music lover is a trial subscription to a streaming service. For what it is worth, I find Apple Music and Apple Music Classical to be extremely useful and comprehensive in their offerings, including countless out-of-print vintage and outstanding recordings.
But their are several others — including Spotify, Idaho, Presto Music and Qobuz.
Plus, my hunch is that the coming year will bring improvements in offerings and user-friendly listening to all of the streaming services.
In any case, here is the Top 10 list of new recordings from 2023 with numerous YouTube samples and helpful comparisons to other composers and styles of music. It has been compiled by the veteran critic and blogger Tom Huizenga (below) of National Public Radio (NPR):
https://www.npr.org/2023/12/13/1218517774/the-10-best-classical-albums-of-2023
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What is the best classical Halloween music?
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By Jacob Stockinger
There is a lot of spookily appropriate classical music to mark Halloween, which is this Tuesday.
The British radio station ClassicFM has published its choice of the “20 scariest Classical music pieces” for Halloween. Here’s a link to the website, which has links to performances of the pieces:
https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/scary-classical-music-halloween/
But much has been left out from J.S. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor to Beethoven’s “Ghost” Piano Trio, from the finale of Chopin’s “Funeral March” sonata to Philip Glass’s film score for “Dracula” (below):
At the bottom is a YouTube video that has another selection that offers 2.5 hours of Halloween music, maybe something you want to play while you pass out goodies to trick-and-treaters.
Do you have a favorite piece of classical music that particularly expresses the mood or atmosphere of Halloween?
The Ear wants to hear.
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It’s requiem time for the UW Choral Union
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By Jacob Stockinger
It’s official.
The UW Choral Union (below), a campus-community singing group with a 130-year history, is dead.
It was killed off last spring by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music.
The death was quietly announced in June but became even more official Monday night. That is when Dan Cavanagh (below top), the new director of the School of Music, and Mariana Farrah (below bottom), the new choral activities director, held what was advertised as a public “conversation” in the Hamel Music Center.
Here is link to a posting about the event by one former self-described Friend of the Choral Union. At the end of the story you will find other background links:
https://welltempered.wordpress.com/
From what The Ear understands, about 60-70 people attended the “conversation.”
Before the post-mortem, some former Choral Union participants held out hope that the two administrators might be open to revisiting and perhaps reversing the decision to end the Choral Union.
They were the optimists.
And they were wrong.
Others were pessimistic and thought that the long-overdue public reply to disappointment and criticism wouldn’t change anything. They said the meeting was designed from the beginning to be a kind of hand-holding and whitewashing to soothe those who had ruffled feathers over the decision, and was meant to use the occasion to make themselves look good to both the public and the university administration.
They were the pessimists.
And they were right.
Unfortunately, The Ear couldn’t make it to the event. But he has heard from several trustworthy sources who did attend.
They agree in their accounts of what happened.
Apparently Cavanagh and Farrah were congenial and patient. They gave lots of reasons, some vague, why the long and popular tradition had to end. The reasons ranged from fiscal constraints and staff shortages to pedagogical practices.
But many who attended apparently remained doubtful, judging from their questions and the answers they received.
The pessimists — or at least the skeptics — said the two were just trying to make the decision more palatable to the same public that has widely disapproved of the move and that has threatened to withhold donations to the School of Music.
But Cavanagh made the future of the Choral Union clear when he said, according to several sources: “We are not restarting Choral Union as we know it.”
Whatever that means besides it is over and done with.
The Ear still suspects that something that fishy is going on and that the details of the process are being withheld. Not only has the School of Music killed off the Choral Union, but it has also killed off the Madrigal Singers (below in a joint concert last year with the UW Chorale Lab Choir).
In addition, the sold-out traditional Tudor Holiday Dinners (below) — dating back 90 years at the Wisconsin Union — have been discontinued in favor of some less impressive celebration of winter called “Frosty Bites” with the Wisconsin Singers and various a cappella groups from campus. (See https://union.wisc.edu/events-and-activities/special-events/frosty-bites/)
Did The Ear get anything wrong? Should he correct something?
What do you thinks explains the move to end the Choral Union after it survived for 130 years, through two world wars and the Great Depression?
Were you there at the Choral Union meeting?
What did you think of the conversation and the explanations that you heard?
Do you have any other reaction to or ideas about the demise of the Choral Union?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Indiana Jones’ fifth meets Beethoven’s Fifth
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By Jacob Stockinger
This is the weekend when the fifth, and probably final, installment of the Indiana Jones franchise has opened.
It is called “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.”
The film has not received great reviews from the critics, but The Ear bets it will still draw big audiences and record holiday box office.
After all, it has Harrison Ford (below), a legendary star and Hollywood icon at 80, and an evil Nazi as well as a thrilling adventure plot.
It also has Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.
How?
Why?
To find out, read the story on Classic FM website. Here is a link:
And here is the official trailer for the film:
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Gramophone Magazine names the Best Classical Recordings of 2022 by each month
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By Jacob Stockinger
Maybe you have a holiday gift card to use.
Or maybe you have some leisure time to explore new recordings for your pleasure.
You’re in luck.
Various media have recently named the Best Classical Recordings of 2022. Whether you stream them or use compact discs or listen to vinyl, over the next week or two The Ear will feature some of them.
One of the most prestigious and well respected lists is provided by the British publication and website, Gramophone Magazine (below).
The link below is just to the December 2022 choices. But in it you can find links by the month to other outstanding selections.
Like many other links now, you can also find links to complete reviews of individual albums, and can even listen to excerpts from the named performances.
Also like many international lists, this one often reflects a not-so-subtle bias — usual towards the artists in the home nation where the organization is based. So look for a lot of British performers and composers.
Still, you can find many outstanding choices to spend those gift cards on. Or just to explore for pleasure whenever you have the time and desire.
Here is one example.
When he first heard it, The Ear was fascinated by Paul Wee’s outstanding and astounding performance of the virtuosic solo piano transcription by the 19th-century French composer Charles-Valentin Alkan of Mozart’s famously sublime and dramatic Piano Concerto No. 22 in D minor, K. 466 (below in a photo of the album cover and in a YouTube video).
Very handy if you don’t have access to an orchestra! Plus you hear the composition in a new and insightful way — as often happens with transcriptions.
What do you think?
Do you have a favorite new recording from 2022?
The Ear wants to hear.
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YOU MUST HEAR THIS: No piece captures the mixed emotions of Memorial Day better than Charles Ives’ “Decoration Day”
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today is Memorial Day, 2022.
It is the annual holiday to remember those who died in military service to the country. (Below are flags placed each year at the tombstones in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.)
If you want to honor survivors and current service members, that would be Veterans Day on Nov. 11.
All weekend long the radio has been playing music and the television has been showing war movies.
A lot of the music is familiar and repeated every year: Sousa marches and Morton Gould suites, elegies by Gustav Mahler, Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein; requiems by Mozart and Fauré; a hymn by John Williams and other movie scores. This year has also seen the playlist include rediscovered works of homage by African-American composers such as William Grant Still.
But only this year did The Ear finally hear — thanks to Wisconsin Public Radio — the one piece that, to his mind, best captures Memorial Day with its blending of consonance and dissonance, its mix of major and major keys, of familiar or “found” music and original music.
It is called, simply, “Decoration Day” and it was composed in 1912 — but not published until 1989 — by the 20th-century iconoclastic and early modernist American composer Charles Ives (below, 1874-1954). It ended up as part of a work the composer called “A Symphony: New England Hollidays.”
See if you agree with The Ear.
Listen to the 8-minute performance by “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band in the YouTube video at the bottom.
Listen to the deep anguish and and sense of loss conveyed in the opening, when a solemn remembrance procession goes to a cemetery to plant flags and lay flowers and wreaths to “decorate” the graves of the fallen.
Listen carefully and you will hear a faint version of “Taps” and ringing church bells in the atmospheric music.
Then as so often happens in reality, life suddenly intrudes in the form of a celebration by a loud marching brass band as it leaves the cemetery for the celebratory marches, picnics and fireworks.
But at the end, the darkness briefly returns. The sense of loss lingers long after the actual death and long after the holiday has been celebrated.
There is no closure.
Just resignation.
Just living with loss.
Here is the background from Wikipedia about how the holiday started as Decoration Day after the Civil War and when it evolved into Memorial Day in 1970: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day
And here is biographical background, with the actual sources and depictions of “Decoration Day” — just go down the page to compositions and click — about Charles Ives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ives
Did you know and like Charles Ives’ music?
Does “Decoration Day” impress or move you?
What music most embodies Memorial Day for you?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Live music continues its comeback from the pandemic. Today is Make Music Madison with free concerts citywide of many kinds of music. Here are guides with details
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By Jacob Stockinger
Live music continues to make its comeback from the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The past week saw live outdoor concerts by Con Vivo, the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society and the Middleton Community Orchestra.
Today – Monday, June 21 –is Make Music Madison 2021.
It is part of an annual worldwide phenomenon that started in France in 1982. It has since spread globally and is now celebrated in more than 1,000 cities in 120 countries.
Yet in the U.S., Wisconsin is one of only five states that celebrate Make Music Day statewide. The other states are Connecticut, Hawaii, New Mexico and Vermont. In there U.S., more than 100 cities will take part in presenting free outdoor concerts. Globally, the audience will be in the millions.
The day is intended to be a way to celebrate the annual Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. Technically, the solstice occurred in Wisconsin last night, on Father’s Day, at 10:32 p.m. CDT.
But The Ear is a forgiving kind. This will be the first full day of summer, so the spirit of the celebration lives on despite the calendar.
You can see – the composer Igor Stravinsky advised listening with your eyes open – and hear 38 different kinds of music. The choices include blues, bluegrass, Celtic, roots music, gospel, rock, jazz, classical, folk, African music, Asian music, world music, children’s music (see the YouTube video at the bottom) and much more. It will be performed by students and teachers, amateurs and professionals, individuals and groups.
Here is a link to a press release about the overall event: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/make-music-day-2021-announces-updated-schedule-of-events-301304107.html
And here is a link to the global home website — with more background information and a live-stream video of a gong tribute to the who died of COVID — about the festival: https://www.makemusicday.org
The local events will take place from 5 a.m. to midnight. All are open to the public without admission, and safety protocols will be observed.
Here is a guide to local events that allow you to search particulars of the celebration by area of the city, genre of music, performers, venues and times. If you are a classical fan, in The Ear’s experience you might want to pay special attention to Metcalfe’s market in the Hilldale mall.
Here is a link to the home webpage of Make Music Madison: https://www.makemusicmadison.org
Here is a link to the event calendar with maps and schedules as well as alternative plans in case of rain and various menus for searching: https://www.makemusicmadison.org/listings/
Happy listening!
In the Comment section, please leave your observations and suggestions or advice about the quality and success of the festival and the specific events you attended.
The Ear wants to hear.
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